iTunes 9 Smart Playlist Sort Order Not Copied to iPhone...

Having a similar issue. I have a 2 smart lists, one is behaving correctly other is not.

I sort by play count, worked fine until recent upgrades.

1 Smart list is still doing this.
Other smart list is sorting well honestly I have no idea what it is sorting based on, haven't figured it out but based on what I have looked at so far doesn't appear to be any columns in itunes, pure random. No matter how many times I play the songs it isn't changing the sort order.

More details.

Have deleted and recreated the smart play list and the problem still exists.

But when I take all the songs and add them to non smart play list, sort order copies correctly.

Something to note: The smart play list I am having an issue with is based on song rating. I checked a 2nd smart list that is created based on rating and it is having the same issue. So question for anyone else having this problem - what are you basing your smart list on? Is it rating or something else?

I am also having the same problem. Running the newest iTunes and iPhone software my smart playlists are not working correctly. My "Recently Added" is correct in iTunes, and if I look at the playlist on my iPhone info in iTunes it is correct there, but the actual playlist on my iPhone is populated entirely with audiobook files. I have tried deleting and recreating the playlist which gives the same results. I have also specified that items within the playlist should be music files only and still get the same results.

I have a playlist that's Top 50 Most Played that's also not behaving properly (ie correct in iTunes but not on my iPhone).

Any suggestions?

Sort the playlist in the order you want, right-click on the playlist name in the sources pane, click *Copy to Play Order*, sync. Any better?

tt2

I tried that didn't work for me.
Ended up putting all the songs into a regular play list and it sorts fine.
However, defeats the purpose of the smart play list 🙂

Have tried all the suggestions, and this problem is driving me absolutely bonkers!!!

Ever since iTunes 9 this has been a problem for me. 9.0.1 update didn't fix it (even though fix list included something that indicated it was an addressed issue). iPhone OS 3.1.2 didn't fix either.

All of my smart playlists are in random order. Standard playlists are fine. I hope this is addressed soon.

I have tried all the suggestions in this thread and all of my smart playlists are still not ordered properly -- they are completely random. It is driving me absolutely bonkers!!!

iTunes 9.0.1.8
iPhone 3.1.2
WinVista x64

In that case report the problem and the steps you've taken to iTunes Feedback.

tt2

Having the same exact problem. Just adding myself to the list of those affected by the bug.

Here is a work around that worked for me.

Edit your smart playlist.

Make sure Match all of the following is checked.

Add one that is "Playlist is Music"

That should reorder it after your next sync ... very annoying bug!

Dukejl - nice that worked! I jut added playlist is music.

Didn't work for me 😟. Actually tried this a ways back when 9.0.1 came out, as the problem seemed to be centered around podcasts. I removed all podcast syncing to the phone and added the "media kind = music" to all smart playlists. No change -- still wrong sort order.

barfsurfer wrote:
... and added the "media kind = music" to all smart playlists. No change -- still wrong sort order.

Perhaps the specific rule *Playlist is Music* (possibly first) is required for the playlist not to inherit some other form of ordering, e.g. "reverse date added" like podcasts. It might help if someone could attempt to determine how the order you do get would be best described - I've seen the word random, but is it really random or does it just appear so?

tt2

I looked at every column u can list in the viewer and could not replicate the sort order.